Tag Archives: custom set

In the fall of 2004 between Mirrodin block and Kamigawa block, Brian tried his hand at set design with a set of 150 cards. Other than updating to use modern templating and keywords, these are exactly as Brian created them. It’s a look back at Brian’s take on old school set design. Chewie and Mike added some commentary just for good measure. You can also read the White, Blue, Black, Red, and Green cards. We hope you enjoy this trip back as much as we do!

Finally, we’ve got the artifact, multicolor, and land cards. Each and every artifact (except Goblin Prototype, who is just weird) is essentially based around a pre-existing card, not necessarily an artifact. Can you guess all of them? The common land cards are probably too good; New Benalia is proof of that. Nevertheless, scry always had a lot of potential to me in a limited setting, and I thought the lands were a way to give each player access to library manipulation regardless of color. I was always curious as to where they would fit in a draft pick order. Frozen Plane was another attempt at a card with constructed applications. All of the multicolor cards were fun to design, but the rares were especially so. Spirit of Rage is particularly vicious; good thing I’ve never been attacked by one. Hope you enjoyed the set. Let me know what you think of it, and thanks for reading!

In the fall of 2004, which was between Mirrodin block and Kamigawa block, Brian wanted to try his hand at set design. So he made a set of 150 cards. Other than some templating work and new terminology and keywords, these are exactly as Brian originally created them. It’s an interesting look back at old school set design, as well as Brian’s personal spin on it. Chewie and Mike added some commentary just for good measure. You can also read the White, Blue, Black, and Red cards. We hope you enjoy this trip back as much as we do!

Here are the green cards. The most obvious theme is with the Fullroot creatures, who don’t really like to remain in the graveyard. All but the one-cost Speaker have a higher casting cost than the cost to reanimate, with the thought that within the set there were not many discard outlets to cheat them into play. When I made them, I thought that they were pretty fair. For a while afterword, I thought they were probably too good. With the quality of creatures these days and cards like Reassembling Skeleton (which is arguably better since the cost can be played any time), I’m back to thinking that they’re probably okay. Other than the Fullroots, there are some other interesting cards here. Hillside Nest should probably be a rare. Oakwood Sage is kind of silly for limited, but then again, I’m a silly guy. It’s kind of funny to me that Terran Colossus is pretty much worse than Primeval Titan – creatures really are better these days, aren’t they? One final section on the way, but in the meantime, give us your thoughts.

Back in in the fall of 2004, which was roughly between the end of Mirrodin block and the beginning of Kamigawa block, Brian wanted to try his hand at set design. So he created a set of 150 cards. Other than a bit of templating work and updating to include new terminology and keywords, these cards exist exactly as Brian originally created them. It’s an interesting look back at the way sets were designed back then, as well as the way Brian took the old design philosophies in his own direction. Chewie and Mike added some commentary just for good measure. You can also read the White, Blue, and Black cards. We hope you enjoy this trip back as much as we do!

Next, we’ve got red’s cards. Red’s themes here are pretty much what you would expect- burn and more burn. A few uncommon and rare cards push toward red being more mono-centric than the other colors, rewarding having lots of Mountains in particular. The Firespouter cycle was an attempt at making an interesting firebreathing variant, where the common and uncommon cards have a drawback and the rare has an upside. Flaming Rat was a combination of Spark Elemental and Viashino Sandstalker, intended to be a good one-drop common that would be quality even if drawn later, especially with creature pump. Kitchen Fire is now infamous on the show just for the noise you have to make when you play it (WOOO!), but has some implication for forcing the opponent to make hard choices when played during their upkeep. Magma Ritual was an attempt at making a “fixed” Dark Ritual in the “right” color- it’s one of those cards that I keep expecting to see printed in real Magic, but not yet.

Way back in in the fall of 2004, which would be roughly between the end of the first Mirrodin block and the beginning of Kamigawa block, Brian decided he wanted to try his hand at set design. So he created a set of 150 cards. Other than a bit of templating work and updating to include new terminology and keywords, these cards exist exactly as Brian originally created them. It’s an interesting look back at the way sets were designed back then, as well as the way Brian took the old design philosophies in his own direction. Chewie and Mike added some commentary just for good measure too. You can see the White and Blue cards too. We hope you enjoy this trip back as much as we do!

On to black. There’s a number of Rat cards here, largely because Kamigawa hadn’t been even spoiled yet and I had always liked cards like Plague Rats and Lab Rats. Black has been through many signature small signature creature types like zombies (and more recently vampires), and I thought that the rats should have a shot. A lot of black’s creatures here are into sacrifice, and cards like Death Contract and Body Exchange play off of this theme as well. Consumer of Rot harkens back to drawbacks like Desecration Elemental, and may not belong at uncommon, but some of my cards were clearly designed with concept first and rarity consideration second (if at all). One Hundred Blind Eyes is probably the card I would be most interested in seeing the art for in black, if not the whole set. Slave to the Moon was my attempt at making a “good” werewolf ages before Innistrad.

Way back in in the fall of 2004, which would be roughly between the end of the first Mirrodin block and the beginning of Kamigawa block and WELL before the formation of The Mana Pool (that was 2007), Brian decided he wanted to try his hand at set design. So that’s just what he did, creating a set of 150 cards. Other than a bit of templating work and updating to include new terminology and keywords, these cards exist exactly as Brian originally created them. It’s an interesting look back at the way sets were designed back then, as well as the way Brian took the old design philosophies in his own direction. Be sure to go check out the White cards too. We hope you enjoy this trip back as much as we do!

Today we’ve got blue. Whereas white had a very strong central theme in high toughness and defense, the cards in blue are not nearly as in sync. There’s a few bounce spells, some card draw, some flying creatures, and some counterspells. The Aether cycle of cards are based around bounce. Otherwise, you’ve got to look to individual cards to get a sense of what was going on. Stubborn Voidmage is pretty silly, but gets worse if combined with things like white’s Armor Rack. Logical Persuasion can be sacrificed at instant speed, which can create some interesting interactions. Baby Whale became a card (Grayscaled Gharial) in Ravnica, but Forced Denial had to wait another year before becoming Cancel in Time Spiral! As always, please leave your thoughts and comments below. Enjoy!